Yesterday, I told you about Yo, a ridiculous new messaging app which lets people exchange two-character “Yo” messages. Some like Stephen Colbert have eviscerated Yo for being utterly useless and plain dumb while others point out the fact that it’s received more than $1 million in VC-backed funding as a proof that the mobile messaging space is booming with innovation.

Be that as it may, turns out the controversial software poses something of a security risk as a pair of college students have found a vulnerability allowing them to compromise any Yo user’s phone number, spam them with unsolicited messages and more.

Yo founder Or Arbel has confirmed that the app was “having security issues” and has promised to deliver a fix “in next few hours”…

We can get any Yo user’s phone number (I actually texted the founder, and he called me back). We can spoof Yo’s from any users, and we can spam any user with as many Yo.

We could also send any Yo user a push notification with any text we want (though we decided not to do that).

Arbel told the publication that they’re working on a fix and promised it will be delivered in the next few hours:

Some of the stuff has been fixed and some we are still working on. We are taking this very seriously.

Here’s a hacked Yo.

Screenshot via Instagram user ‘stephzibi’.

Another hack unrelated to the aforementioned breach has Yo sounding out a snap of ‘Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” instead of its normal “Yo!” sound, as evidenced by a Vine video below.

It floors me that Yo is currently #5 on the App Store’s Top Free list.

You know you’re onto something when your product has become the topic of late night talk shows.

“Now there’s a new app that has expanded the possibilities for communication by drastically reducing them,” said Stephen Colbert. “That’s right, ‘Yo.’ An app that’s already hugely popular with the world’s population of Sylvester Stallone.”

Here’s Colbert having a field day with Yo because it doesn’t let you type your friends anything besides “Yo”.

I love the following excerpt from Colbert’s show:

When I first learned about an app that boils down all your communication into two letters, I expressed myself in one: ‘Y?’.

But I joined the Yo movement when I read the company boasts it takes 11 taps to send the word ‘yo’ on a rival messaging service compared to just two on their app. That’s a nine-tap difference. Taps you could be spending with your children.

And here’s a nice Yo review on Google’s Play store.

Yo’s Arbel told Business Insider that the app, which only took eight hours to develop, attracted more than 200,000 new users just 48 hours after its launch.

Here’s the problem. You develop something in eight hours and unless your name so happens to be Ryan Petrich or Filippo Biga it’s bound to have bugs and in this case very serious bugs…

SkyFall

Actually there are plenty of resourceful hackers/devs that can code great apps/tweaks in 10 hours. Just because someone isn’t well known it doesn’t mean he can’t do something as good as another famous dev/hacker.

✪ aidan harris ✪

I wasn’t at all implying that (sorry if it looked that way). What I was trying to say is not that it’s impossible to do such a thing in such a short amount of time but rather that in order to do such a thing and do it right you need to be talented…

Niclas

Well, that’s a different story, we were talking about 8hours!

SkyFall

Are you jokin or are you serious, if you are jokin then:

Niclas

Yay! It’s meme time!

SkyFall

At least I don’t thumb up my own comments, smartass.

Niclas

U mad bro? No one voting you up?

SkyFall

No one? Check the comment I wrote 2 days ago. It has up votes, and I don’t care for up votes I just state my opinion. That and this post is 2 days old so not many people check it.

Niclas

Wow, you got a fanpage? I’m your biggest fan!

SkyFall

Dear Niclas, I wrote you but still ain’t callin’
I left my cell, my email, and my home phone at the bottom
I sent two letters back in autumn, you must not-a got ’em
There probably was a problem at the post office or somethin’
Sometimes I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot ’em
But anyways, **** it, what’s been up? Man how’s your life?
Ronnie too I’m sorry
I had a friend kill himself over some ***** who didn’t want him
I know you probably hear this everyday, but I’m your biggest fan
I even got the underground **** that you did with Skam
I got a room full of your posters and your pictures man
Anyways, I hope you get this man, hit me back,
Just to chat, truly yours, your biggest fan
This is SkyFall

omrishtam

Yo.

Stephen Hagans

In this case it might be.. YO?!

Tony

That’s whack “Yo!” See what I did there? 🙂

Eni

this is so stupid, i don’t know why ppl give those stupid things importance Yo